


Warm Heart, Warm Fingers and Toes

by MaaaarianMadamLibraaaarian



Category: Anne of Green Gables (TV 1985) & Related Fandoms, Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, I wrote this in a literal one-sitting blind frenzy until 4:42 am two years ago, Post-Season 2, Pregnant Mary, all fluff all the time, anne discovers her feelings, bash and mary being in love and bantery, bed sharing, canon compliant up to there, don’t tell Mrs. Harmon Andrews, gilbert already Knows, my deep harddrive storage just coughed it up a few weeks ago so I polished it up to post, study dates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24886309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaaaarianMadamLibraaaarian/pseuds/MaaaarianMadamLibraaaarian
Summary: Anne is delighted to spend some quality time with Mary while Bash and Gilbert are gone. The fact that she has to sleep in Gilbert’s room is… not quite as delightful. More like confusing and weird. Why does her ideal dream prince of her imaginings keep morphing into her hazel-eyed, smiling friend? What does that mean? What will happen when he comes back? And why oh why does she like the smell of his pillow so much?
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Sebastian "Bash" Lacroix, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley, Mary Lacroix & Anne Shirley, Mary Lacroix/Sebastian ''Bash'' Lacroix
Comments: 31
Kudos: 269





	Warm Heart, Warm Fingers and Toes

**Author's Note:**

> I overcame my own fundamentally impatient nature to actually take my time to edit this one all the way through even though it took for-e-ver, because I knew it would work better as a one-chapter. even though its ~hella long~
> 
> also I lowkey cried reading this again (after forgetting about it) because I miss Mary so much and I want Bash to be happy So Much.

“Of course, Mary, anything for you,” Anne found herself saying. She meant it, but it seemed like something she maybe should have thought to run by Marilla or at least considered for a bit longer. Oh well, the words were out, and Mary looked so happy and relieved that Anne didn’t regret them in the slightest.

“Thank you, Anne. Bash _insists_ that while he’s away with Gilbert I have someone stay with me, and you are absolutely the only person I would want to be with me for that long.” Mary gave Anne a meaningful look that they both knew meant some variation on ‘the matrons of Avonlea are not exactly riveting company who I want all up in my business for the better part of a week.’ 

“Not only are you the best, Anne, but you are the only person who won’t take it personally when I admit that I am only doing this to appease Sebastian,” Mary began to raise her voice and over enunciate as her husband walked into the kitchen, “And that I would be perfectly fine on my own,” she concluded, turning pointedly to swat Bash with her dish towel (all the way across the table) (where he couldn’t fight back).

Bash rolled his eyes at Mary’s light dramatics. “My wife is pregnant, I want don’t want her alone in a cold house in winter and _I’m_ the bad guy.” He looked up at Mary as she walked to the kitchen stove and pulled on her apron until she was close enough for him to plant a kiss on her apron-covered stomach, not yet round with pregnancy, but the object of Bash’s affection all the same. It was Mary’s turn to roll her eyes, as Bash started speaking to baby whom he insisted on calling a series of ever increasingly ridiculous names. “I just want baby Algernon to not have to be alone with you this whole time, if he can’t have me around to break up the monotony.” Bash smiled at Anne while keeping stern hold of his wife, continuing to address her stomach, “Well then, Anne will do perfectly fine, won’t she baby Antonio? Won’t Anne be a suitable substitute for a few days?”

Bash turned his head to look at Anne, making quite the comical picture twisted all the way around in his chair from his hold on Mary. “There is one thing that is absolutely necessary, Anne, and that is you never repeat names when addressing the baby,” he says sternly.

“No repeats, got it” Anne said seriously, keeping up the full act of earnest eye contact with Bash.

“Now I believe I have used up all the good two syllable names, but three or more syllables are fair game because I just started with those.”

Anne couldn’t keep in her laugh any longer. “You used up every two syllable name you know? Already?”

Mary may have wanted to roll her eyes, but the combined effects of Bash’s earnestness and Anne’s mirth were too much and Mary’s hearty laugh rang out through the kitchen. Mary tapped Bash’s head with the end of the spoon she was holding “Now let me go, we invited Anne over for tea, I have to serve her tea.”

“Can’t I have a kiss first?”

“From me? Or from the baby? Because some days it feels like you only care about one of us.” Mary tried for a stern, vaguely hurt tone but barely succeeded as Bash craned his neck impossibly high while puckering for a kiss, nearly hovering above his seat before she bent slightly to concede to him.

Bash, grinning broadly, let Mary though and turned his full attention to Anne for instructions. “Now, Anne, the most important thing is that you must spend at least half an hour per day talking with the baby. Not with Mary, just with the baby. Pretend Mary doesn’t even exist.”

“Don’t make me spill this hot tea on you,” Mary interjected from across the kitchen.

Bash smiled wider, still talking to Anne, but busy gazing at his beautiful wife and her faux-stern glares, “It’s very important for the baby’s development--” The kitchen door slammed, just as Mary was pouring the fourth cup, “See, now Gilbert is here to tell all involved that I am totally right and my theories are medically sound,” Bash finished.

“Whatever theory you are talking about, I have serious doubts that it is medically sound, or that I am qualified to corroborate it even if it happens to be,” said Gilbert, unwinding his scarf and sitting down to take off his boots, then looking up and noticing Anne at the table. Something in him tries to stand up again to pay his respects, but he stops just in time, realizing how silly it would look to stand up in the middle of taking off his boots. “Good afternoon, Anne,” he said, giving her probably more glances than makes sense and accidentally taking far too long with his outerwear, spreading snow all over the entryway.

The next time he looked up he found her smiling at him, and he nearly forgets to listen to what she’s saying. “You have impeccable timing. Mary was just pouring your tea,” Anne says.

“And which of Bash’s theories was he bothering you with? If it is anything to do with Trinidadian bush medicine, you should definitely 100% believe him, his mother and all who have come before him are very wise,” Gilbert said while making his way to the table, slinging his legs over the bench, and sitting down by Anne, across from Bash. “Anything else? Anything that comes from Bash’s brain? Hogwash,” he finishes, flashing his eyes at Bash and willing him to rise to the insult. Anne laughed at the changing emotions on Bash’s face as Gilbert expressed total faith and then total doubt in his older friend’s grasp of prenatal parenting duties.

“Actually,” Anne says, and has to force herself to continue through the little jolt she gets when Gilbert turns to look at her, making intense eye contact so close, “He was expressing how key it is that I ignore Mary and talk directly to her stomach, which I somehow doubt would work out for me as well as it has for the father-to-be.” 

Mary’s under-her-breath “Mmhmm” could be heard by everyone as she sat down, and she underscored it with “Oh, it’s not working out for him so well, that you can trust,” as she smoothly, in one motion, digs her elbow into his side and then dodges his attempt to kiss her cheek, all without spilling the tea she is handing across the table to Anne. 

Anne’s laughter at Mary and Bash’s antics affects Gilbert the way her laughter always does, by making his heart skip a beat, only further intensifying the problematic symptom of his hands shaking ever so slightly whenever she was actually near him. The concentration required to not spill crumbs on himself combined with the concentration of the portion of his brain that was always involved in memorizing every single detail of her so he could most effectively play it back later. He loved the slight affectation to the way she drank her tea, as if she were only barely holding back from a grand fantasy game where she was a princess and had to eat with the best, most regal manners in the land, complimenting Mary on the quality of the scones and the texture of the butter. As he watched Anne and Mary talk easily, he was filled with gratitude all over again that the two of them got on so well. Sometimes Anne came over to see him, they studied together before tests or when Miss Stacey was too busy to give them extra tutoring, but he knew that he got to see Anne much more than he would have if he hadn’t been living with Bash and Mary. Plus, regardless of his feelings for Anne, he was happy Mary had someone in the community that she felt totally comfortable with. He would have felt so bad asking Bash to come with him to check out the medical school in Kingsport next week if there weren’t anyone who could stay with Mary. The fact that that person was Anne was just an added bonus. A beautiful, red-haired, spritely, winsome, distractingly amazing added bonus.

****

After the first night spent with Mary, Anne knew one thing for sure, and that was that Mary kicked in her sleep something awful. Anne barely slept, but she didn’t regret doing a favor for her friend. She woke up early, started the coffee, did the morning chores and resolved that if she had to run home to Green Gables for a few hours to take a nap every day this week well then so be it. She would stay and be there for Mary. Especially when Anne saw how ill Mary looked first thing in the morning as she said “Oh, Anne, I’m sorry I forgot to tell you, I can’t drink coffee in the morning, just cold water and toasted bread. It’s the only thing I can keep down.” 

Anne set both things in front of Mary, rubbing her back in slow circles while pretending that nothing was wrong by chattering about Ms. Stacey’s plans for their class once school started up again in a week or two. Mary, usually so strong and averse to being coddled, took the comforting in stride with the combined effects of an early morning, a lack of coffee, and her ever-looming morning sickness which, though not as bad as it had been when she was pregnant with Elijah, was still a serious kick in the pants even on a good day. 

“Anne, I’m sorry I forgot to mention how poorly I’ve been sleeping. I guess I got too embarrassed and it didn’t cross my mind,” Mary said, taking small sips and small bites she chewed carefully. 

“It’s not a problem,” Anne said, “I’ve faced much worse, trust me, anything is better than a set of five-year-old twins.”

“Well, regardless, I know Bash is used to it, but there’s no reason you have to sleep in the bed with me. I promise, even if something goes wrong, you’ll be able to hear me from the next room over.” Mary straightened her back a little, smiling at Anne in silent thank you, “And I promise, this isn’t me being stubborn and fine on my own, I sincerely don’t want you to start school on a week of no sleep from being saddled with the pregnant kicker for a week. Please, I promise I’ll be fine.”

Anne and Mary were both independent spirits who understood each other. Anne knew what “I’m fine” felt like and sounded like when it was really a lie, but Mary was sincere, which is the only reason Anne agreed. “All right, maybe I will, if you promise it will be all right.” 

Mary nodded. 

“Well then, what should we do today after the bread is made? With the two of us and no distracting menfolk, we can get so much done.”

Mary’s eyes glint, seeing an opportunity to tease her little protégé, and puts on a tone of exaggerated wistfulness, “I do find Bash to be so distracting while I’m cooking, even the thought of filling that handsome man with my cooking has caused me to almost burn plenty of cakes and pies. Have you ever burnt something over Gilbert, Anne? A cake? A pie? A shepherd’s pie? Coffee?”

“I haven’t burnt anything out of distraction since I was fourteen, Mary, and certainly never over a _boy_ ,” Anne says haughtily, ignoring Mary’s insinuation and moving directly past it. “Is there anything around the house you wanted to tackle? Of course Diana invited us for tea and Marilla for supper anytime this week, so we could do anything you feel up to.”

****

That night, again Anne goes to sleep after Mary, after too much late-night reading followed by a stint of later-night imagining while sitting in the warmth of the stove. There’s a pleasant quality to not having Marilla tell her to go to bed, but Anne has become reasonable enough to know that she should go to sleep in order to be there for Mary if she doesn’t feel well again the following morning. Anne bundles up in her quilted dressing gown, cools the fire, and grabs a candle. She checks briefly on Mary, who seems to be sleeping soundly at the moment and has managed to stay under the covers even though she’s spread across every corner of the bed. “Hmm, there may have been ulterior motives to Mary wanting me to sleep in the other room. Who would have thought that Mary has a sneaky side?” Anne says to herself. She moves to the next bedroom and sets down the candle. “I’ll have to tell Gilbert when he gets back, he would never expect Mary of anything so underhanded,” with a start, Anne froze, in the middle of the act of turning down the bed. Gilbert. 

_Gilbert._

This was Gilbert’s room. Oh mercy. It hadn’t even occurred to Anne until this moment that of course the next room was Gilbert’s. It would be warmer, and it would have been closest to his father. She knew his father had lived in the room Mary was currently snoring in, which Anne could faintly hear through the walls if she listened closely.

Anne couldn’t sleep in Gilbert’s bed! It was too much, it was almost too much just to be in his room. She’d had Diana and Ruby and Cole up in her room a million times, but even as she had become better friends with Gilbert she had never dreamed of doing any of their studying or talking in her _room_. It was too personal, far too intimate. This was too intimate. Being in his room in the middle of the night, even with him fifty miles away, was far too intimate. This was not going to work. She could not believe that she hadn’t thought of it before. She dropped the sheets and quilt like they were on fire.

It wasn’t like she could sleep in the other room. It was way too far away from Mary and nullified the whole point of her staying the night. And she couldn’t sleep with Mary, not now, not after Mary had sprawled out and was actually sleeping for once. There was no room for Anne in that bed now.

Anne took the candle and left the room, deciding once and for all to spend the night in the chair she’d been sitting in for an hour already. It was next to the fire, she was plenty warm in her dressing gown, and she would just tell Mary that she had fallen asleep on accident. Matthew took short naps in the evening in his rocking chair all the time, it was certainly possible. Plus, there was a certain romance to it, wasn’t there? Like she was waiting all night for a jilted lover to return, or standing watch waiting for a message that brought news of her fiancé in battle. She curled up in the wooden chair and tried to fall asleep, lulling herself with a fantasy of a princess wakened by her prince as she attempted to stay up all night for him. 

But Princess Cordelia never got the chance to be awakened by her prince because Anne could  
not  
fall  
asleep. 

She couldn’t even drift off. Finally, in the middle of the night, sleepy and grumpy and resigned, Anne relit the candle, stumbled over to the bedroom and collapsed into the bed. Falling asleep nearly instantly, Anne didn’t have time for a thought of the prince in her daydream having brown curls and earnest hazel eyes.

****

The next night, Anne wasn’t nearly so tired and used her significant skills in resigning herself to the worst to just go right to bed. This wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to her, it wasn’t even in the top ten. Furthermore, no one would ever have to know. If Mary didn’t see a problem she was unlikely to mention it, and if Anne didn’t tell Diana or Ruby then Diana and Ruby would simply never learn about it. Anne would tell Katie Maurice about the uncomfortable nature of sleeping for a week in Gilbert Blythe’s bed, and that would be the end of it. 

Of course, when Anne told Katie Maurice about it, she exaggerated immensely. The bed was not uncomfortable in the slightest, the quilt was very warm, and Anne slept very soundly. For moments, while she was not completely asleep but certainly not awake enough to stop herself, Anne even allowed herself to think about Gilbert a little bit. The bed smelled like him, and not in a bad way at all. During their study sessions and occasional walks home together, Anne had picked up on many details about Gilbert that she turned over in her mind. The way his voice changed timbre depending on his mood and who he was talking too. The way his hair looked in candlelight, in firelight, in early morning sunlight, or covered with snowflakes. How she never caught him messing with it, but it never looked the same for very long, almost as if the curls had a mind of their own, like Medusa. She knew the way his eyes felt on her, the different shades of hazel, she’d had plenty of chances to see them considering how often he looked at her. 

But she was more familiar with the movements of his face when he wasn’t looking at her, when she didn’t feel compelled to look away. The smooth cut of his jaw and the tension of his irritation when someone at school said something stupid or outright cruel. The way his nose turned pink outside in the winter, even over the course of just a short time outside. The three wrinkles between his eyebrows when he was focusing extra hard on a book with extra small text.

She remembered how they would study in the evenings and how, especially as winter came and Gilbert tried to deny it, it would get dark earlier and earlier. 

She couldn’t even count the number of times she’d reached across the table and covered the text of his book with her hand, forcing him to stop. “Gilbert,” she’d said a hundred times, as he looked up at her, startled. She’d learned to steel herself to reacting to the moment they made eye contact, especially when he looked so confused and disgruntled and his forehead was all wrinkled up. “It is too dim to read. You are only going to hurt your eyes.” 

“Are you just trying to get ahead of me?” he had said once. 

“No, I’m stopping too, even though the print in this book is much bigger than yours. Solidarity.” The book slammed shut. “I’ve seen how Marilla’s failing eyesight has encumbered her and I won’t have that for me or you, we must keep our youthful eyesight as long as possible.”

She was particularly proud of the times she had convinced him that the best learning happens when the recall is tested, and, as he walked her home, he would tell her all about what he had been reading and what he had learned. It was her favorite outcome, especially as he spoke so animatedly about science and biology and anatomy, because she got to learn about it, too. She loved when they would walk slower as they got closer to Green Gables, so he could finish what he was saying and so that she could put in her two cents, as they got caught up in the conversations that crop up when you have a poetry-loving writer talk with a science-obsessed future doctor. His eyes lit up and she would talk with her hands, and as they talked she could feel the little part of him relax that was usually tense, whether it was tense all the time or just usually tense around her was not something she had cared to think about. But these conversations made her feel like she knew Gilbert better than most people, like he would tell her anything if he knew it would keep her around. 

She knew so much about Gilbert Blythe. But she had never thought about his smell. But now, surrounded by it in the warmth of the heavy quilt, she realized it was familiar and comfortable. She had never noticed it consciously, but here it was and it was just right. She nuzzled her nose into the pillow and fell entirely asleep. 

****

Then it was the last night she would have to spend with Mary. Anne was so excited for Mary. The normally restrained woman didn’t let on much, but Anne could tell she had missed Bash desperately and would be so glad to have him back. As for Anne, she was sure that seeing Gilbert in the flesh once more was sure to knock into place the way her nighttime fantasy dreams had gotten confused and mixed up with memories of her friend Gilbert. Her beloved prince was meant to be blue-eyed, and she cringed every time that she looked up in a fantasy and saw hazel eyes looking down at her. But it was surely going to be fixed as soon as normalcy was regained and she could sleep in her own room again, where fantasies of Princess Cordelia had lived for years now. 

Nestling down into the quilt, Anne fell asleep once more, only to wake in the darkest hours of the morning to the sound of the door of the kitchen opening, and Bash’s musical voice meshing with Gilbert’s quiet tones out in the kitchen. She registered just enough to note that there was nothing the matter, but not enough to wake up entirely.

The clanks and clamor of Gilbert coming into the room with a single candle roused her again, so her eyes were already open when Gilbert nearly let loose one of the curse words he had learned on the steamer.

Anne was in his bed. It didn’t compute in his brain until Gilbert realized that Bash had gone into the big room five minutes ago and not come out, so obviously he was sleeping in there with Mary. Oh dear.

Anne was embarrassed for about a second and a half, before she noticed how Gilbert’s hands were shaking and his teeth were chattering. “What on earth, Gilbert? Did you walk from the Bright River station?”

She was out of the bed in a flash, holding his freezing cold hands with her own small ones.

“We took the earliest morning train, there was no one to borrow a horse from…” He barely got out the words through his chattering teeth, not to mention his exhausted brain going a hundred miles a minute and yet getting nowhere.

“It’s miles away and the coldest time of year!” She continued to berate him while dragging him to the bed, “Get in, you need to get warm as soon as possible.”

“No, it’s fine, I can just go—” Gilbert argued, wondering if the heat in his face was going to help warm him up faster than normal.

“NO.” Anne grabbed his face in her hands, a fierce grip forcing him to look at her in the light of the one candle. Her blue eyes bore into his and he barely registered enough control over himself to close his mouth, which had parted slightly at the sheer mechanics of her hands on his cheeks, not to mention the shock of the whole situation. “Get in. It’s the only thing in this house warm enough to get you back to safe temperature quick enough.”

He had barely enough time to half-mumble a comment that considering he was the one studying medicine, she sure bossed him around concerning his health a fair amount.

“I’m right and you know it,” She said, pushing him down and pulling the covers up over the both of them. She heard his breath speed up and realized that even though there were plenty of logical reasons for her to move into the other room, she’d automatically climbed into the bed too, in the process of forcing him to get in the warm place where she’d been sleeping moments before. She quickly justified that there was no way he was going to listen to her and let her go into the other room, chivalrous as he was wont to be, and decided it was fine for the time being. For his own good.

She curled up facing him, grabbing his freezing hands in her own and rubbing them. It seemed shocking that something so cold could even exist in the warm bed where she’d found so much comfort over the past week. She busied herself situating the rag-wrapped warmed brick so it was next to Gilbert’s feet, hoping that the heat could penetrate the layers of wool socks he was wearing as well as the cold surely had during their long walk.

This whole time, Gilbert’s eyes didn’t leave Anne’s face. He came to the conclusion that he maybe had suffered some ill effects from the cold, since his brain could not understand or comprehend what was happening right now at all. She seemed so intent, so focused on his comfort. He knew he meant something to her, he knew she liked him enough to want to boss him around and save his eyesight and walk home with him from extra tutoring. He didn’t, however, know that he could inspire this kind of fervor. Of course, he supposed that she would put in the same amount of effort if there were anyone in danger that she could help. After all, she’d run into a burning building to help the Gillis family before she was even really friends with Ruby.

A full-body shiver went through Gilbert, and Anne huddled closer, her body warm against his side. She folded his hands between their bodies and brushed over his face with one of hers, placing her warm palm against his cheek and then covering his ear. Her face inches above his, Gilbert couldn’t look at the worried line between her eyebrows any longer, and let his eyes flutter closed.

“It’s a good thing that it wasn’t snowing tonight.”

She didn’t have to even really whisper this close, but just breathed out the words. Gilbert felt them against his face, which at least meant he could feel his face, which he supposed was an improvement.

“If you were wet as well we would be in much worse shape” She thought of the way snow looked when it fell on his hair, then had to resist the urge to take this opportunity to explore his curls with her fingertips. His hair wasn’t going to freeze off. It was certainly not a priority.

Several minutes passed, and Anne began to think that Gilbert was going to come out of this with all of his extremities and his whole wonderful face intact. She didn’t want to leave this cocoon of warmth they’d created together, but the little voice of propriety was whispering that she’d done all she had to.

“You need tea,” she said, just as his breath was deepening into real sleep, when it had finally been a while since his last quaking shiver. She slowly pulled her hand away and began to roll out the other side of the bed, but he stopped her as soon as her warmth left his side, pulling on her arm to replace it and gently tugging her head back down to the pillow beside him. 

“Stay,” he muttered, mostly asleep, his hand over the side of her head, fingertips barely entwined in her hair falling out of its braids.

“No, I—”

“Please stay,” his head moved closer to hers, turning so his lips nearly touched her forehead, his chin barely grazing her nose. “Don’t leave. It’s cold.”

Anne’s protest had downgraded from half-hearted to quarter-hearted, eighth-hearted maybe. “I need to—” was barely a whisper, before his warm breath on her forehead and the soft roughness of his palm against her jaw annihilated the rest of the excuse.

“Stay, m’love,” His arm moved to wrap around her and pull her in closer. The heaviness of his arm outweighed the little escape voice in her head, just as the steadiness of his breathing pulled her also into a deep sleep. 

****

Anne woke up registering a familiar scent and an unfamiliar feeling against her cheek, a thick, warm, something that was shifting so slightly beneath her. As she opened her eyes, she remembered what had happened so early that morning and understood immediately that, strange as it may be, she was lying on Gilbert’s sweatered chest, his arm around her waist, her hand resting on his stomach where he was stroking up and down her fingers with the side of his thumb.

She knew vaguely how she was supposed to react: by getting out as soon as possible, by launching away from him like he was poisonous, which he was, to her reputation. But she was sleepy and warm and comfortable, and even if she wasn’t sure sometimes about the way he made her feel, she knew she trusted him completely and totally to always do the right thing. 

So she just adjusted her head to look up at him. The view from here was mostly chin and throat and ear, and that impeccable cut of his jaw that made him seem distractingly like a hero from a book if she allowed herself to dwell on it. 

Which she usually didn’t do. Dwell on Gilbert.

This week had been an exception, and even then she hadn’t actually _allowed_ herself to sit there thinking about Gilbert for hours, it had just _happened_. She’d tried to reroute her thoughts to the fictional prince from her latest story, or to Mr. Rochester, but there were only so many details about fictional people she could roll over in her brain. Whereas Gilbert… Gilbert was real. And, apparently, irresistible.

He let out a small contented sigh, so sweet, so handsome. Affection rushed through her. Her heart skipped a beat. Had he said “my love” to her last night? Had she imagined that? Was he addled by the cold? Did she _want_ to have imagined that?

There was only one way to find out.

No, not wake him and ask him. Obviously not.

She let her imagination take hold, without trying to push it away from the idea of Gilbert. She moved, taking a good honest look square into his face. She imagined running her fingers through his curls like she had resisted doing last night, his fingers against her cheek, she imagined tracing that impeccable line from his ear to his chin with the palm of her hand, imagined his arm around her like it was now, but awake, outside, conscious, under a tree in the dappled sunlight, his mouth, parted slightly like it was now, coming towards her, her kissing him back, smiling, his eyes shining with that look of his.

She warmed.

This was surprisingly easy.

The fantasy rolled out of her brain without stumbling on a single awkwardness, as if it had been locked there, fully formed, waiting for her to let it out.

If he’d said “my love” to her last night, she very much wanted him to have meant it. And remember it. And said it on purpose. And say it again, if she was lucky.

More than that though, these thoughts were confusing, she wanted someone with her to clarify, and she didn’t think, well, she had a suspicion, an inkling really, that Katie Maurice wouldn’t cut it.

She wanted her friend. This sleeping boy next to her looked like someone else almost, but she knew when he opened his eyes he’d be Gilbert again and she could ask him.

Just then, he did. Eyelashes fluttering, he instinctually pulled in closer to Anne before waking completely and stiffening slightly.

Their eyes locked and Gilbert’s jaw dropped. Suddenly Anne, who always had the right words for everything, finally could describe the one thing that had evaded description for months now. She could never put words to it exactly, the way that Gilbert Blythe looked at her. Now she could, in the hazy early-morning light, understand that Gilbert Blythe looked at her like she was the only thing in the world he wanted to see. The realization jolted her before he spoke.

“Anne, you are the loveliest saving angel I could ever dream of,” he said earnestly, warmth filling his voice.

Anne blushed, overriding her gut-reaction to dodge the compliment, to say, “Your face is a national Canadian treasure, Gil, I couldn’t have it freezing off on my watch.”

He chuckled, closing his eyes again, brushing his hand up and down her arm, letting a small smile escape to tease, “You like my face?”

“All the girls like your face, I would be exiled if I neglected it,” she teased back, then sensed the space she made by bringing up the other girls, she sat up on one elbow, one of her braids falling to his chest, where she laid a hand pressing into his beating heart. “I like it more than the other girls though.”

He opened his eyes, startling to find her so close, reaching up to press a hand into hers.

“I like your heart even more than I love your face, Gilbert.”

He laced his fingers through hers in a tight grip over his heart, then pressed her palm into his lips.

Her heart shuddered. This was really happening. “Gilbert?”

“Yes, love?”

Warmth gathered in her belly and spread to every one of her extremities. She was certain that word on Gilbert’s lips could stave off frostbite no matter how cold the night. “You said that last night, too, ‘love,’” her hands shook, but she powered on, “Do you mean it?”

“Anne,” he said her name with so much tenderness, so much longing, as he reached up and cradled her cheek with his hand, she expected him to pull her in, to kiss her. But he didn’t. He seemed…content to look. “Yes, I love you.”

“Are you sure? You say it so easily, like it isn’t something you’ve thought about—“ 

“Anne. It sounds easy on my lips because it takes more effort _not_ to tell you I love you every time I look at you.”

“Oh,” popped out of her mouth softly, before the effort to keep her head up dwindled and she dropped her head to the pillow. Gilbert quickly turned his head until their noses were almost touching, looked at her quizzically and waited for the signature Anne flow of words to start. “I just realized a few days ago, I mean about the feelings, the ones I have for you, so it might give me a little time to catch up but—“ the flow stops.

“Take all the time you need, Anne-girl.” Gilbert watched the smile play across Anne’s face, watched her eyes glint around his face, and he starts to lean in, infinitesimally, “Can I…”

Anne nodded, even that small motion bringing their lips to almost touching, before she jolts away from him, her hand in between them, fingers against his mouth as she starts giggling uncontrollably.

His eyebrows rose in confusion. She doesn’t have to kiss him if she doesn’t want to, but he certainly does not know what’s so funny.

She tries to reassure him, but it only goes moderately well. “Gilbert,” she catches her breath long enough to say, “We can’t kiss—“ dissolving into giggles “—if I kiss someone I have to tell the girls the—“ she heaves “—the whole story and—“ she almost guffaws the final part “—look at us!”. She gestures, eyes wide, and shifts her legs where they are tangled with his under the covers.

“We’re in your _bed_. I’m in my _nightgown_.” She tries to muffle her laughter into the pillow, but Gilbert pulls her into his chest, laughing now, too, almost as hard. “My hair is a _mess_ ,” she adds.

“Well it’s not like I planned this!” he chuckles, “Plus, your hair is beautiful,” he pulls on it a little bit, “Very alluring.”

She wrinkled her nose and sat up properly, wiping a tear from her eye, beaming down at him, “I can’t lie about my first kiss for the rest of my sorry life, even my imagination isn’t up to that.” She starts to muscle him out of the bed, “I’ll kiss you later, now go muss up the spare room so it looks like we have a shred of dignity.”

He resisted her for a bit, and for a moment her resolve almost crumbled. She almost fell onto him and let him show her how much he’d been trying to convey in those lingering glances, let him tell her over and over with his mouth and his words and his hands everything he wanted her to know.

But then her brain supplies her with Jane Andrews’ shocked face, and then Mrs. Harmon Andrews’ scandalized face, and if that can’t kill the mood, nothing can. He climbs out of bed and, surprising even herself, she follows him.

Right before he turns the doorknob, she reaches up and kisses his cheek. “Isn’t it kind of fun to have a secret though?” she whispers.

A thrill runs all the way down Gilbert’s spine as he feels her breath on his neck before she pulls away. Being in love with Anne Shirley-Cuthbert would never, ever be boring or predictable, and he could not wait to see what the rest of today and this week and this month and this year would bring.

“Yes it is, my love.”

**Author's Note:**

> *resisting the urge to say something self-deprecating because that’s not a mentally productive path for me*  
> Thanks for reading!! <3


End file.
